Anyone Playing Air Rivals?

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I’ve been playing a bunch of free MMOs recently, including Air Rivals. This one seems fairly unique given that it’s actually somewhere in the smoky realm between Starfox and Lineage II… (Can there really be such a genre overlap?)

What’s perhaps all the more surprising is that it’s a free Korean-type micropayment-funded MMO, and I’m actually fairly impressed with it. While the game is distinctly loot-grindy, there’s also a great big PvP war thing going on and, well, I’m just a sucker for those. Real time combat too… it’s as if people are finally trying to do something different in MMO-land. Ooh, all these free games have got me pumped up. Hell, I might even have another crack at free robo-MMO, Exteel. Maybe. If I can invent a machine that puts thirty-nine hours in every day.

Never really get into free MMO’s. I fell that since im paying for one, I really should put time into that one. That and EVE is taking up alot of time due to taking part in a little operation thats been going on over the past week *winks*

This game used to be run under the name “Space cowboy online”. Regardless, it’s a great game. Combine free flight action gaming with an MMO and you end up with one of the most creative games in a long time.

Unsure about balance in this version. In the old one, missiles were grossly overpowered (I was in the flying tank and had absurd amounts of defenses and still very high level people could deal over 10,000 in one salvo and kill me in one go.)

I heard that a lot people had some bad experiences with that free asia games concerning loosing accounts, especially with high level charakters. So perhaps one might have to check up forums of that games to proove this….
Nevertheless, Air Rivals looks pretty cool. But I’am afraid that I first have to finish all medals in “Trackmania Nations Forever” which is one of the best actual free games imho!

trackmania nations certainly, but if ad supported counts i’ve been playing deus ex on game tap, along side a few others like rogue trooper and tomb raider legend psyconauts the last of which i’ve not been playing. But it deserves a mention.

OK, it seems that the company that held the licence for Ace Online (the game’s original title) in Europe and America (among other places), where they renamed it Space Cowboy Online, recently had the contract broken by the developer so that the developer’s new owner could run the service themselves. It’s now known as Ace Online International in America and Air Rivals in Europe. In the furore anyone who held an account in the affected areas lost all their characters and progress. As far as I understand it.

Meh, free to play (but pay for the full thing) isn’t the same as just free… make different threads for each type/genre if you don’t want this very confusing… I play no free to play MMOs, I don’t see much point to it unless you’re willing to pay for the full featured experience, and if I’m gonna pay there are better MMOs out there…

I’ve been playing the GalCiv2 demo for a couple months now, does that count as a free game? I can’t justify spending $60 for the game + expansions bundle right now, so I’m playing the hell out of the demo getting the basics of the game down. Always a slap in the face when I run out of turns though :D.

I love this site. Where else could I possibly learn about all these wicked off-the-beaten-path games that I would have never discovered myself? Case in point : Mount and Blade. Never heard of the thing until I was reading an RPS article from a few months ago on Fallout 3. Someone in the comments section mentioned how amazing the game’s mounted combat is. 12 hours later my eyes are bleeding from my inability to stop plowing down infantry with my broadsword and charger and investing in my newly-granted fiefdom. Instant classic. May be the best $25 I’ve spent ever. I should be studying for the bar exam! Fuck! Is it possible we’re entering a new golden age of PC gaming? I haven’t had this much fun since 1999.

@ Jackflash, be careful downloading the latest version. Its a brand new release today, and as such contains a few show-stopping bugs (most notably the dwarves have the habit of playing Sleeping Beauty and never waking up). You may be better off with the previous version, or waiting a couple of days until the latest version is patched. (DF 0.27.176.39c is stable)

Albatross18 (link to a18.ogplanet.com) is still my favorite free online game after 2 years. Anyone remember how fun Mario Golf was for the N64? It’s kind of like that except massively multiplayer with stat tracking, more depth, better graphics, and more than a pinch of Japanese insanity.

I tried this game after reading Kireon’s review, but after playing it for a while I realized it’s just another MMO. The conversations people are having are just the same as in any other MMO. Item x > item y bla bla bla

The grind is a waste of your life, it really is. It’s so retarded, I find it impossible to justify playing through it to myself

Combat Arms is decent, less hard-core Counterstrike which I appreciate. War Rock is more of a Battlefield knockoff, with the usual issues (vehicles > infantry).

Last free game I played (other than Dwarf Fortress) was Dead Frontier. Browser-based zombie MMO essentially, with a graphical top-down shooter as the actual gameplay mechanism. Avoid the real-money ‘Shop’ unless you want to donate since it’s rather overpriced, there’s a huge market on the forums and once you start venturing out 8 or so blocks from the start you’ll find a lot to trade.

Dungeon Runners provided for a couple hours of mindless fun, but grew tiresome much too quickly. Other than that, I’ve been firing up InstantAction a lot lately, which is kinda surprising, with me being more of an RPG man myself.
I’ve also tried a few strategy browser games (like OGame) but most, if not all, were not worth it.
And of course, I still fire up Anarchy Online every now and again – still ‘playing’ the free version after some three years; ‘playing’ is in quotes because I don’t really play much anymore, I just log in to have a chat with old friends and see what’s new and the likes.
I’ve been meaning to try Exteel but after Dungeon Runners I couldn’t bring myself to. Maybe sometime later. And of course Starfox-y sounds good, but I bet Air Rivals will grow old just as fast. I’ll still try it tho, of course. Just as soon as I get internet at home again.

I played Air Rivals for well over a year back when it was Space Cowboy Online. The gameplay is basically the same. Pvp between roughly equal (or up to 5-10 levels different, in most cases) is a great experience, but certain levels are insane power thresholds (78, 86 for B-Gears) that also happen to require incredible grind time to attain. There is also zero entertainment to be found in grinding: all mobs follow the same simple patterns and merely upgrade their damage and health as levels increase. Nor are there many choices to be made on your character/gear – your main choice comes when you create the character, and it plays basically the same once you acquire the gear’s skills.

I wish that someone would make a non-MMO version of Air Rivals. Now THAT would be a game.

I played this game for 3 days now. As GothikX says, that it gets old really fast, I’m beginning to feel the truth of his comment. Levelling up here takes a LONG TIME. Take for instance, a quest where you have to shoot down 60 monsters. If your are weapons are pathetic, then shooting down these suckers will take FOREVER. And worse, you have to accumulate some cash to get more fancy stuff to customize your gear. That means more grinding time, and more monsters to kill.